Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Mafia - Page 33

The room beyond was dimly lit, but he could see Nagini, swirling
and coiling like a serpent underwater, safe in her enchanted, starry
sphere, which floated unsupported in midair. He could see the edge
of a table, and a long-fingered white hand toying with a wand. Then
Snape spoke, and Harry’s heart lurched: Snape was inches away from
where he crouched, hidden.
“. . . my Lord, their resistance is crumbling —”
“— and it is doing so without your help,” said Voldemort in his
high, clear voice. “Skilled wizard though you are, Severus, I do not
think you will make much difference now. We are almost there . . .
almost.”
“Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter. I know I can find
him, my Lord. Please.”
Snape strode past the gap, and Harry drew back a little, keeping
his eyes fixed upon Nagini, wondering whether there was any spell
that might penetrate the protection surrounding her, but he could
not think of anything. One failed attempt, and he would give away
his position. . . .
Voldemort stood up. Harry could see him now, see the red eyes,
the flattened, serpentine face, the pallor of him gleaming slightly
in the semidarkness.
“I have a problem, Severus,” said Voldemort softly.
“My Lord?” said Snape.
Voldemort raised the Elder Wand, holding it as delicately and
precisely as a conductor’s baton.
“Why doesn’t it work for me, Severus?”
In the silence Harry imagined he could hear the snake hissing
slightly as it coiled and uncoiled — or was it Voldemort’s sibilant
sigh lingering on the air?
“My — my Lord?” said Snape blankly. “I do not understand.
You — you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand.”
“No,” said Voldemort. “I have performed my usual magic. I am
extraordinary, but this wand . . . no. It has not revealed the wonders
it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one
I procured from Ollivander all those years ago.”
Voldemort’s tone was musing, calm, but Harry’s scar had begun
to throb and pulse: Pain was building in his forehead, and he could
feel that controlled sense of fury building inside Voldemort.
“No difference,” said Voldemort again.
Snape did not speak. Harry could not see his face: He wondered
whether Snape sensed danger, was trying to find the right words to
reassure his master.
Voldemort started to move around the room: Harry lost sight
of him for seconds as he prowled, speaking in that same measured
voice, while the pain and fury mounted in Harry.
“I have thought long and hard, Severus. . . . Do you know why
I have called you back from the battle?”
And for a moment Harry saw Snape’s profile: His eyes were fixed
upon the coiling snake in its enchanted cage.
“No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find
Potter.”
“You sound like Lucius. Neither of you understands Potter as I
do. He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I know his
weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the
others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it
happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come.”
“But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than
yourself —”
“My instructions to my Death Eaters have been perfectly clear.
Capture Potter. Kill his friends — the more, the better — but do
not kill him.
“But it is of you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter.
You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable.”
“My Lord knows I seek only to serve him. But — let me go
and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I
can —”
“I have told you, no!” said Voldemort, and Harry caught the glint
of red in his eyes as he turned again, and the swishing of his cloak
was like the slithering of a snake, and he felt Voldemort’s impatience
in his burning scar. “My concern at the moment, Severus, is what
will happen when I finally meet the boy!”
“My Lord, there can be no question, surely — ?”
“— but there is a question, Severus. There is.”
Voldemort halted, and Harry could see him plainly again as he
slid the Elder Wand through his white fingers, staring at Snape.
“Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Harry
Potter?”
“I — I cannot answer that, my Lord.”
“Can’t you?”
The stab of rage felt like a spike driven through Harry’s head: He
forced his own fist into his mouth to stop himself from crying out
in pain. He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was Voldemort, looking
into Snape’s pale face.
“My wand of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus,
except to kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under
torture of the twin cores, told me to take another’s wand. I did so,
but Lucius’s wand shattered upon meeting Potter’s.”
“I — I have no explanation, my Lord.”
Snape was not looking at Voldemort now. His dark eyes were still
fixed upon the coiling serpent in its protective sphere.
“I sought a third wand, Severus. The Elder Wand, the Wand of
Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it
from the grave of Albus Dumbledore.”
And now Snape looked at Voldemort, and Snape’s face was like a
death mask. It was marble white and so still that when he spoke, it
was a shock to see that anyone lived behind the blank eyes.
“My Lord — let me go to the boy —”
“All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have
sat here,” said Voldemort, his voice barely louder than a whisper,
“wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it
ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for
its rightful owner . . . and I think I have the answer.”
Snape did not speak.
“Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all,
Severus. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret
what must happen.”
“My Lord —”
“The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I
am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who
killed its last owner. You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live,
Severus, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine.”
“My Lord!” Snape protested, raising his wand.
“It cannot be any other way,” said Voldemort. “I must master the
wand, Severus. Master the wand, and I master Potter at last.”
And Voldemort swiped the air with the Elder Wand. It did nothing
to Snape, who for a split second seemed to think he had been
reprieved: But then Voldemort’s intention became clear. The snake’s
cage was rolling through the air, and before Snape could do anything
more than yell, it had encased him, head and shoulders, and
Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue.
“Kill.”
There was a terrible scream. Harry saw Snape’s face losing the
little color it had left; it whitened as his black eyes widened, as the
snake’s fangs pierced his neck, as he failed to push the enchanted
cage off himself, as his knees gave way and he fell to the floor.
“I regret it,” said Voldemort coldly.
He turned away; there was no sadness in him, no remorse. It was
time to leave this shack and take charge, with a wand that would
now do his full bidding. He pointed it at the starry cage holding the
snake, which drifted upward, off Snape, who fell sideways onto the
floor, blood gushing from the wounds in his neck. Voldemort swept
from the room without a backward glance, and the great serpent
floated after him in its huge protective sphere.
Back in the tunnel and his own mind, Harry opened his eyes: He
had drawn blood biting down on his knuckles in the effort not to
shout out. Now he was looking through the tiny crack between crate
and wall, watching a foot in a black boot trembling on the floor.
“Harry!” breathed Hermione behind him, but he had already
pointed his wand at the crate blocking his view. It lifted an inch
into the air and drifted sideways silently. As quietly as he could, he
pulled himself up into the room.
He did not know why he was doing it, why he was approaching
the dying man: He did not know what he felt as he saw Snape’s
white face, and the fingers trying to staunch the bloody wound at
his neck. Harry took off the Invisibility Cloak and looked down
upon the man he hated, whose widening black eyes found Harry as
he tried to speak. Harry bent over him, and Snape seized the front
of his robes and pulled him close.
A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snape’s throat.
“Take . . . it. . . . Take . . . it. . . .”
Something more than blood was leaking from Snape. Silvery
blue, neither gas nor liquid, it gushed from his mouth and his ears
and his eyes, and Harry knew what it was, but did not know what
to do —
A flask, conjured from thin air, was thrust into his shaking hands
by Hermione. Harry lifted the silvery substance into it with his
wand. When the flask was full to the brim, and Snape looked as
though there was no blood left in him, his grip on Harry’s robes
slackened.
“Look . . . at . . . me. . . .” he whispered.
The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in
the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed,
blank, and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor,
and Snape moved no more.


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